County judge fills new engineer’s post

BENTONVILLE — County Judge Barry Moehring’s administration continues to take shape as Josh Beam will fill the new position of engineer.

Beam, a 2005 graduate of the University of Arkansas with a degree in civil engineering, has worked for USI Consulting Engineers in Springdale and Hawkins-Weir Engineers in Fayetteville. Beam was chosen after a multi-phased interview process, Moehring said.

“We had a handful of qualified candidates that we narrowed down to three, one of which was Josh,” Moehring said. “We did the traditional interview with him sitting down with myself and other county officials. Then I had him go out with Jay Frasier and his supervisors in the Road Department and had them visit some sites. They asked him, ‘How would you approach this?’ and ‘How would you engineer the problems we’ve had here?’”

Moehring initially envisioned the engineer would include day-to-day supervision of the Road

Department, but he scaled that back during the hiring process. Beam will report to Moehring and work closely with the Road Department, but he won’t handle daily operation. Frasier, public services administrator, is in charge of those details.

“There were two reasons for that,” Moehring said. “No. 1, Jay and the team out there are doing great work. Changing the reporting responsibility right now might cause some disruption. No. 2, there’s a lot of engineering work to be done and I want the engineer to have his nose to the grindstone doing actual engineering work. If he’s asked to oversee the Road Department he would be doing a lot of personnel work, and I’d rather have him doing engineering work.”

Pat Adams, justice of the peace and chairman of the Transportation Committee, has long advocated hiring an engineer. The county has to improve the quality of work being done on roads and bridges, and having an engineer work on those projects is essential, Adams said.

“I never did expect him to be out there riding on a piece of equipment or handling a shovel with the pothole crew,” Adams said. “We’ve got a lot of projects we need to have an engineer on to be sure we’re doing things right. We’ve also got a courts facility project he can have a lot of input on. He’ll be a liaison between the Quorum Court and whatever company we select to do the design work. He’ll be our eyes and ears.”

Beam said most of his professional experience has been working with local governments. He has done work on transportation improvements, including work on two phases of the Razorback Greenway. He also has done work on drainage, water and wastewater improvements.

“My primary focus is going to be on infrastructure,” Beam said. ” Working with the Road Department on streets and drainage.”

Bob Bland is justice of the peace for District 11, which includes much of western Benton County and many miles of roads. Road work is one of the two issues he typically hears from constituents about.

“Roads have been big,” Bland said. “There’s the courts building and the roads. Between the two that’s mostly what people want to talk about.”

Bland had experiences with the Road Department as a rural resident before being elected to the Quorum Court, including one instance where an improperly installed culvert changed the drainage on his property and washed out his driveway, which the county later repaired.

“They did it based on their experience. It was not engineered,” Bland said.

Most county residents have more concern about roads than other issues, making it important for the county to do things right, Bland said.

“It probably doesn’t get any more personal than that to most people,” he said. “The courts building is probably more important to the county, but people care more about the road in front of their homes.”